


keep your silver, give me that gold

by thesecretdetectivecollection



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Also fighting, Gary's into Jamie boxing, M/M, basically if you objectify Jamie Carragher a little bit you won't be too disappointed, lots of gratuitous sexy shirtless Jamie, we are all into Jamie boxing tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 03:24:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14708199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesecretdetectivecollection/pseuds/thesecretdetectivecollection
Summary: Jamie starts boxing.Gary barely even notices, as far as anyone else can tell.In which Gary has a thing for Jamie boxing, because of course he does, and Jamie takes things a little bit too far, because of course he does.





	keep your silver, give me that gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blindbatalex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/gifts).



It had _seemed_ like a normal day.

Gary’s in the dressing room, already wearing his suit, tissue paper bib inserted into his collar, sitting quietly and letting the makeup lady do her work.

Jamie arrives a couple of minutes later, and Gary tracks his movements around the room in the mirror, using only his eyes. Julia, their makeup lady, has a way of tutting if he dares move under her ministrations. It always reminds him vaguely of the sound his mother had made when he was being a particularly difficult or disappointing child, so he tends to stay pretty still.

Jamie settles into the next chair, easing his bag to the floor and offering Gary a nod and a good morning. His bag is leaning against the chair, falling over when he kicks it accidentally, falling open to reveal a pair of shiny black boxing gloves, settled just at the top of the bag.

 _It’s not a big deal_ , Gary tells himself, pushing away the image of Jamie in a boxing ring, jaw set, mouth guard in and gloves up.

And that’s the end of it.

Really. It is. That’s the end of it. Jamie boxes now. Whatever. Gary definitely doesn’t think about it anymore, definitely doesn’t think about—

_Silk shorts. That slow, smug smirk working its way across his face, that feral joy glinting in his eyes. Bouncing—float like a butterfly, right? And he’s always stung like a bee, Jamie has. Maybe he’d even be shirtless, sweat working its way down…_

  
_Fuck’s sake, Neville, **stop it**. You cannot objectify your coworkers like this. Especially not **that** particular one._

  
But that’s the end of it. Really.

  
(If only.)

 

 

  
Jamie comes into work one cold winter morning without gloves. His fingers are all stiff when he shakes Gary’s hand. It’s the sort of thing that Gary notices absently and chalks up to either false bravado or idiocy. _Of course,_ Mr. Tough-As-Nails Scouser would think he didn’t need gloves. What a twat.

Jamie’s typing out a text message and it’s taking him longer than it normally does, painstakingly slow at getting the words out (not that Gary knows how long it normally takes Jamie Carragher to type out a text message, that would be creepy). It all makes sense, though, when they’re running through the clips and he finally sees that the knuckles on Jamie’s fingers are all neatly split.

They still move smoothly over the display, more or less, though Gary is careful not to touch him in the broken spots, in a way he wasn’t before.

Before had been—easy. Easy casual contact—footballers didn’t exactly excel at personal space. And locker rooms broke past boundaries pretty fast. It was one of the hardest things about retirement—missing that casual contact with other people. It was a hard thing to explain, really, that you’d grown up with a type of touch that you weren’t getting anymore. It was different from sex, though Gary had tried that, just so he could be close to someone again. That’s why the studio was such a brilliant job. Other footballers understood. There was no way not to. So when he’d gotten here and Redders had greeted him with a hug? He’d been fucking ecstatic, even if he’d affected disgust. It stopped mattering, at some point, whether it was a Gunner or a Spur or a Scouser. It felt like they were on the same team now.

“Piss off a brick wall, did you?” Gary asks during their break, voice carefully casual.

Jamie has the nerve to look confused, as if he has no idea what that could possibly be a reference to.

“If you’re talking about my face—I mean, I get it, it’s not Becks-level handsome, but it’s the same it’s always been.”

Gary sighs and glances pointedly at Jamie’s hands. Jamie looks down at them too, and horror of horrors, blushes a little bit.

“Oh, these?”

Gary doesn’t deign to respond, just arches a single eyebrow.

Jamie stares at his own hands, clenching them absently into fists and relaxing them, watching the skin stretch, to see if the cuts split open again. They don’t, for the most part, though a few of the scabs crack and ooze tiny trickles of fresh blood.

“Thought me hands were a bit tougher than they were,” he says quietly, “didn’t wrap enough. Or at all.”

“You’re an idiot. I’d think even Scousers would have enough brains to wrap their hands before they went off to break them against someone else’s face. Wasn’t there that film _Creed_? That happened in Liverpool, didn’t it? Wasn’t that required viewing for you lot?”

“Only for Evertonians,” Jamie mumbles.

“Rumor has it you were an Evertonian at one point, James.” Gary looks pointedly at Jamie, knows it needles him to no end that he’d been Blue for so long.

He gets a predictable stink eye and an instantly gratifying “Shut the fuck up, Neville.”

“Wrap your damn hands, Carragher.” He’s made his point, and he walks off to go discuss clips with the producer, and to avoid giving Jamie the satisfaction of the last word.

  
The next day, the cuts are covered in clean white gauze bandages.

Gary doesn’t actually remember signing up to be Jamie Carragher’s keeper.

(He doesn’t mind his new responsibilities as much as he should.)

He hadn’t realized before, but he actually quite likes boxing. He’d never found it that compelling a sport before, but it almost matches football when it’s Carra in the ring. The problem is that they both go to the same gym, the one in the Sky Sports complex, a few floors up from the studios. Carra goes in nearly every day, of course, unless they have to travel somewhere. Gary goes in a couple times a week if he feels like it, because what’s the point of retirement if you can’t relax when you want to?

(After the first time he sees Jamie in action, Gary suddenly feels like going to the gym a lot more—his waistline is very grateful for Jamie’s new hobby, even though of course it has nothing to do with how often Gary works out because why would it?)

It starts in the dressing room, before they’re even out in the gym. Jamie strips from his street clothes into his workout clothes and he tends towards tight t-shirts that cling to his torso and silky-looking shorts most of the time. He sits on the bench after he’s dressed, wrapping his hands. Gary usually pretends to be busy on his phone, checking something, or texting someone.

It’s smooth and quick, almost reflexive—a loop round his thumb first to hold it in place and then down his wrist, a few inches down his forearm, back up to his wrist, and then he loops it between each finger, wraps four or five times around his knuckles, and then wraps back down around his hand until it’s back on his wrist, when he tucks it carefully under one of the earlier pieces so it stays firmly on. And then he does his other hand, and then he slips his gloves on—they’re professional grade, the type that lace up, not the Velcro kind amateurs use. He uses his teeth to tighten the laces—that’s Gary’s favorite part (or it would be if he cared at all and actually had a favorite part)—and then looks around for his trainer to tie them for him.

Sometimes his trainer is late, and Gary lets out a sigh and pulls Jamie’s gloves hand onto his lap, pulling the laces until Jamie says they’re tight enough, and then tying them off to make sure they don’t get loose.

“You—you need to tuck the ends in,” Jamie murmurs the first time, “you need to tuck them in well enough so they don’t come out and whip me in the face.”

So Gary does, ignoring the way it feels to push the laces between the leather gloves and Jamie’s bandaged forearms, the way his heart stutters in his chest a little bit, the way he feels sparks of heat in his fingers and in his belly when he accidentally-on-purpose brushes against Jamie’s warm skin.

Jamie always grins at him and thanks him. “I owe you one, mate!” He gets the door for them both—Gary can’t quite work out how he manages it, with the gloves, as they walk out to the gym.

“Ta, Gaz, have a good workout!” He says cheerily before he dashes off to the boxing ring, in the center of the gym. There’s a cardio section facing it, and that’s where Gary goes, to go run on the treadmill. They have little televisions built into them, but he never uses them, just sticks his headphones in his ears and listens to Oasis as he watches Jamie.

So he goes in and jogs on the treadmill and watches Jamie and his trainer go into the boxing ring. There’s just something about it. Even the way Jamie steps into the ring, the way he bends his back smoothly and steps between the ropes with an almost ethereal fighter’s grace.

Now, looking at Jamie Carragher’s face, graceful wouldn’t be the first word to describe him. Fighter, however, very well could be. But he does have a sort of grace about him, nonetheless. He hadn’t exactly been a gazelle on the pitch, but there was a strange fluidity to his movements around the studio, an exquisite awareness of how his body moved and how much space it occupied. It was kind of gorgeous, actually, and never more so than when he was dancing around the ring, backing himself into a corner, making Gary worry, until suddenly, he’d make one lightning quick move and in one, gorgeous, fluid second, his trainer would be in the corner instead. For a solid few weeks, Gary worried more about him smashing his head on the corner posts than anything else, until he realized that it wouldn’t be a problem.

Then there’s the way he grins at his trainer before putting his gloves up, too. It’s the happiest he’s looked since he’d worn the shirt. He smiles at Gary, sometimes, in the studio, but those smiles have nothing to this grin, this fierce glint of excitement in those eyes, like a restless sea finally rising in a storm. It’s vicious, in its own way, like the razor-sharp grin of a shark on the hunt. But it’s glorious, too.

It’s this gorgeous, _wild_ thing, the way Jamie jabs and crosses and throws his hooks—he favors the hook over the uppercut, at least with his right. He likes an uppercut on his left, though. He ducks and slips and weaves effortlessly when the trainer swipes at him. Gary watches how sweat drips down his brow, and how he turns and wipes it on the shoulder of his gray t-shirt.

He watches the plain black gloves get worn, too, over the weeks and months. Jamie uses his teeth to take off his first glove, usually the right—tugs on the tucked in bits until they come out and pulls at the knots until he undoes the double knot and undoes the bow, loosening them enough to slip one off and using his free hand to undo the other one. After, he ties the ends of the gloves together by the laces and hangs them around his neck as he unwinds the plain white handwraps, which should _not_ be attractive, because they’re sweaty, dirty pieces of cloth. And yet.

Jamie pulls the hem of his shirt up to wipe the sweat off his face. He ducks between the ropes of the ring and hops down, gloves round his neck, tied together by the laces. He grins broadly and winks at Gary as he walks out to the showers.

 _Love Like a Bomb_ comes on, as Jamie’s getting out of the ring, and he winks at Gary as he walks out to the showers. Gary stumbles on the treadmill, and only his reflexes, a little slower than his playing days, but quick enough, keep him from face-planting.

 

True to his word, Jamie never comes in with split knuckles again, but his hands still change, from the fighting. They can’t help it. There are the calluses, of course. The old ones are still there—the ones that form on his palm, at the base of his fingers, from lifting weights. Gary knows all about those ones, had a matching set himself that didn’t soften until recently. Gary can even feel them, the way they catch in his t-shirt sometimes, the rough skin against the smooth fabric, when Jamie goes to slap his shoulder or leans over him to look at the monitor in the editing room.

But the new ones are on his knuckles, where the skin thickens a little, gets tougher. They stop splitting after Jamie starts wrapping, but they still bruise, a little, in the little dips between his knuckles, when he’s just starting out. And then they finally start callusing, a little. And then they stop changing, physically. But they probably ache, judging by the way he finds Jamie wincing sometimes and rubbing them, trying to ease the pain, the stiffness, when he thinks nobody’s looking. But he gets used to it, and he stops, eventually.

  
Gary is perhaps the only one who notices—the only one who is so intimately acquainted with those hands, the only one who watches those hands work the display, who watches those hands gesticulate wildly as Jamie tries to make a point about Spurs’ defense or Liverpool’s attack… He unwittingly catalogs every paper cut, every ripped cuticle, even the faded scar on Jamie’s left little finger, between the middle and furthest last joint.

(In a not-creepy way.)

  
It’s funny, that Jamie’s hands are tougher than they’ve ever been, right at the same time that he’s softer and kinder than he’s ever been, at least as far as Gary’s concerned. It’s a thought Gary doesn’t linger on.

But _oh!_ when he boxes, when he boxes, throwing quick jabs and hard crosses and ducking and weaving and slipping his shoulders effortlessly when the trainer takes a swipe at him now and again, oh, it makes Gary _feel_.

Apparently it isn’t enough for Jamie, slamming his fists into pads or punching bags. So he moves from practice drills to sparring, and the difference is that now the other guy is _hitting back. Some guy, some complete **asshole** is hitting at Jamie_.

Only he’s not an asshole at all. He’s actually a really nice guy. Tall, blond, handsome in a rugged _I-could-survive-in-the-woods-if-I-had-to_ sort of way, someone who understands Jamie completely.

See, the thing is, Jamie doesn’t just get himself any old guy off the street to be his sparring partner. He gets _Freddie fucking Flintoff_.

“You’re fighting Flintoff now?”

“Sparring, not fighting,” Jamie corrects mildly, “but yes.”

“Wasn’t Flintoff on track to become a professional boxer?!” Gary remembers reading something along those lines, but it hadn’t concerned him, so he hadn’t exactly paid much attention.

“Yeah, but he fucked up his shoulder.”

“So why’s he fighting you then?”

“It’s _sparring_ , not _fighting_ , Gaz. He can tolerate it for the most part, we’re not on the professional level. He calls it off when he starts to hurt too much.”

“And what’s he like?”

“You’ve been on _A League of Their Own_ before, right? He’s brilliant. Really funny lad, and he’s been helping me with my boxing, too. Love ‘im.”

“How’d you manage to get him to agree to fight you?”

“It’s _spar_ —never mind. I was just talking to Redders about it, about needing a bit more, and wanting to have a bit more training, but more realistic, more intense than the pads and the bags, told him my mate Tony, Tony Bellew, you know, was busy these days, got a fight coming up, so he told me he’d ask Fred if he knew anyone, and it turned out he did. Himself.” Jamie smiles. “He really is absolutely brilliant, though. I’m learning loads off him. And he’s a good mate, too. Just a good lad to go grab a bite with after work or after we have a session.”

 _You go out with **me** after work_ , Gary wants to protest, _**we** go out for post-show pints. Not you and fucking Flintoff._

The sparring changes things. It’s not just his hands anymore. Jamie comes in some days, walking with stiff shoulders, rubbing at the muscles in his back when the cameras aren’t rolling. He stretches his arms up to the ceiling and leans one way and then the other, stretching the muscles on his ribs. Sometimes when Jamie’s stripping off in the locker room, Gary catches glimpses of bruises on his ribs, or on his shoulders. Never on his back—it’s bad form, and rabbit punches are illegal—but Freddie’s a better boxer than Jamie, so far, at least, and it shows on Jamie’s body.

On one level, Gary does not approve. He worries, knows that Jamie’s sparring partner—Freddie, his name is Freddie, as he’s well aware—is much better than Jamie at fighting, which both his sense of honor and his recently developed Carra-senses, which keep the idiot Scouser alive post-retirement, object to.

  
On the other hand, Gary has seen a lot of magnificent things, but Jamie Carragher in a fight damn near tops the list (and Gary’s won the Premier League eight times). It’s like the training before, but far better. Jamie’s faster, and there’s this fierce focus in his eyes. He’s a smart fighter too, figures out how to break his opponents down with a tactical acumen that takes Gary’s breath away and makes him think he’ll be a brilliant manager one day.

Since Jamie signed his contract with Sky, Gary’s spent a lot of time in denial. But even he isn’t so far gone that he can’t recognize it: he gets aroused, watching Jamie fight. It’s a strange turn-on, and not one he’s particularly proud of, but his dick just likes it. It’s the combination of the endorphins from his workout, the adrenaline, and the show. Gary likes it, in the sort of way that soft silky workout shorts don’t easily forgive.

  
He likes the way sweat drips down Jamie’s face, the way he can't wipe it with his hands because of the gloves, so he shrugs up a shoulder instead. He’s had dreams, much to his own chagrin, dreams about licking that drop of salty sweat that’s making its way down Jamie’s shirtless torso.

He loves the way Jamie grunts, honest to god _grunts_ when he throws a hard punch or takes one. The first time he hears it, a shiver runs through him, and he wonders if this is what a hot flash feels like. His whole body reacts, his insides going liquid for an instant.

So watching Jamie spar is like watching his excitement battle his worry for control of his body. Between being aroused at the grin on his face and muscles in his arms, and the heartbeat or two of devastating panic after he gets hit, Gary’s workouts are more than just physically taxing.

As Gary sits at the weight machines, or the stationary bike and watches Jamie box, he notices that part of the plain white hand wraps go a grisly reddish-brown from the bloodstains and the washing. The day after he notices, he takes a closer look at Jamie’s hands than usual (not that he needs to), and notes with satisfaction that there are no cuts healing on his knuckles. The bloodstains must be from early on, Gary thinks with a disproportionate amount of relief. Either that or the boy goes out bare-knuckle fighting on weeks they don’t have MNF. One of the two.

 

It all comes to a head when one day, Jamie comes in, a few minutes after Gary, as usual. Gary stays still, letting Julia work on him, until her hands fly to cover her mouth and she lets out a loud shriek. Gary looks up, expecting to see a spider or something and share a conspiratorial look with Jamie about women fretting over nothing.

But he’d take the world’s biggest spider over what he sees. Jamie’s eye is swollen and bruised a dark purple. He sends Gary a hapless shrug across the dressing room and apologizes quietly when Julia starts fretting over what he’s done to his beautiful face, panicking and drafting a nearby intern as an impromptu assistant. Gary is so shocked he doesn’t even have the wherewithal to protest that Jamie’s face is definitely not beautiful, is just barely adequate at the very most.

Gary looks at him, as Julia abandons him for emergency damage control, shouting at a runner to tell the production staff that there might be a delay in shooting. He stands and gently nudges Julia away, ignoring her screeches that _surely this can wait, can you not **see**?_ He pushes until he’s standing in front of Jamie’s chair. He tilts Jamie’s chin up, turning it this way and that.

“Is that as bad as it looks?” He asks calmly.

“Didn’t break my nose, so I’m going to say no.” Jamie responds.

“Cheekbone?”

“Felt like it was still in one piece.” Jamie shrugs.

Gary reaches up and feels, gently, applies a bit pressure to see if there’s any give to the bone. Jamie lets out a breath through clenched teeth.

“Hairline fracture, if anything. There’s that, at least. What the hell happened? Piss off a pub full of Everton fans, did you?”

“Sparring,” Jamie says with a fierce, feral grin that suggests that it was great fun, actually, and he’ll be going again soon.

“I’ll tell Fred to take it easy on my face next time. He’s better than me, but this one is on me. I was careless, didn’t keep my gloves up.”

“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that? How are we supposed to put you on camera when you have a black eye?!”

“Can’t you fix it?” Jamie asks the Julia, who purses her lips.

“We’ll try,” she says quietly.

“I’m sorry, Jules,” Jamie says softly, widening his eyes, well, his one good eye, and trying to look as charming as he possibly could.

It was almost cruel, how effective it was. The poor woman had been besotted with him for months. Gary’d overheard her once talking about getting lost in his ocean-colored eyes. (He’d sympathized rather more than he’d expected. They were… a decent pair of eyes, as far as eyes went.)

“Just don’t do it again,” she says softly, and Gary watches her brush a gentle hand over the bruising skin, “You’ve got to be careful, J.”

“I will be,” Jamie says seriously, looking her straight in the eyes, and Gary can almost see the exact moment he’s been completely forgiven. Freddie, however, might find that his makeup doesn’t look quite so good on the next episode of ALOTO, whenever that would be.

“Ice will help bring the swelling down,” he says, looking around and not seeing any. He crosses to the little fridge in the corner and pulls out a cold can of Coke, tossing it to Jamie, who holds it against his face without wincing.

“How long before we have to go on, again?”

“Doesn’t matter, Jules needs to cover that up first. They can run ads. I’ll go pick a clip or two to cut so we can make up the time.”

Gary goes and picks one clip of Chelsea smashing defenses, and one clip of Liverpool faltering in front of parked buses. They’ve got a few more clips in the wings to prove both points, and if they move quick enough, they can still address both clips during the show. It only takes a minute, and when he gets back to the dressing room, Jamie is dressed and sitting very, very still.

Julia’s applying something green to his eye, simultaneously consulting a video tutorial on her phone, which an intern is holding up for her—this can’t be a problem she’s dealt with too many times before. She’s experimenting with the shade, has Jamie holding up a palette of greens, trying to get it right.

“Green, cancels out the colors of the bruise, so we can cover it up a bit better,” she explains absently to Gary. “Pick a tie out for him, would you? And tie it. Loose, so we can get it on him straight away and get him out there.”

Gary looks at the selection of ties and wonders what he should go with. Grey would be very normal-looking, but maybe something brighter would attract more attention away from his face. “Carra wears hideous tie” made for a much preferable headline than “Carra goes on telly with face bashed in,” after all.

He finally picks one out. A dark forest green, brighter than they’d normally wear, but not obscenely ostentatious.

It may or may not have been because of the green makeup currently being put on Jamie’s face. He’s now getting a foundation the color of his skin blended on, and he’s doing an admirable job not flinching, mostly. Just as Gary has that thought, though, Julia applies a bit too much pressure, and Jamie sucks in a breath through clenched teeth and grimaces, though he doesn’t pull away.

“Sorry, love,” she says, melodic Geordie accent softening the words, “Gary, I’ve got this, you go run and get a runner to ask lighting if they can do anything to help with this.”

There’s a runner in the hallway, a young man with acne near his hair line who’s waiting for exactly this sort of message. Gary relays it as he wraps the tie around his own neck and ties it loosely, fully aware of how stupid it looks over his suit and the navy tie he’s already got on. Maybe he should change, too, wear something brighter to distract from Jamie’s face.

He asks Julia absently, while waiting for her to put the finishing touches on Jamie’s face before he leans in to put the tie round his neck, tightening it absently and ignoring the intimacy of the motion. She laughs and tells him to stop overthinking. He obeys because she might be mad about Jamie, but she does Gary’s makeup too, and it would be wise not to piss her off too much, before he ended up doing the next show with a complete smoky eye.

The lighting guys do some magic, a bit of green tint to one of the lights, not enough to be obvious, but it plays down the bruising a little bit, and Gary is amazed all over again at the magic and science of television.

They manage to make it to air nearly on time, and Gary sends a look to the production assistant, one that hopefully conveys the command to set the clips back in the group. Jamie is a little shaky during the first half, a little self-conscious. He stands to Gary’s right, and turns to face him a lot when they’re talking to each other around the monitor, turning the bruised side of his face away.

When he’s working his clips, his hand almost floats up a few inches, on its way to his eye before he forces it to divert towards the far side of the screen.

He swallows and Gary watches the way his throat works for a moment, before he leans down to look at the screen. Jamie’s hand is only a few inches away, and as he keeps talking about the clip, it moves closer, until his little finger slides under Gary’s thumb.

Gary’s heart leaps in his chest, and he looks up at Jamie, that bruised eye, still that gorgeous color, blue-grey-green iris peaking back through the makeup.

Gary swallows hard himself, and Jamie meets his eye for a half-second, and Gary can feel Jamie’s hand pushing further under his own.

“And that’s why Liverpool has so much trouble with teams that park the bus. They need pacy wingers, so Sadio Mané is perfect, but because he’s been unavailable to them for large parts of the season, because of the African Cup of Nations and that horrible injury he suffered back in March, they’ve missed that pace out wide. That narrow attack, trying to push through the center, it forces them to rely on moments of individual brilliance from the likes of Firmino and Coutinho, you see, and Adam Lallana, when he’s fit, though he plays a slightly different role.”

Jamie’s recovered, somehow, he’s speaking fluidly and articulately and his hand is warm under Gary’s and his eye almost doesn’t look bad at all.

There’s a quiet moment, Gary stood there watching him, before Ed steps in to fill the silence. “Now Gary, if you had your pick of the league, who would you bring in to help solve Liverpool’s problems?”

“Me? I’d probably put Carra back. You know I’m not a fan of Liverpool, and he played as a midfielder once or twice, early in his career…“

They both laugh, Ed and Jamie, and Jamie pulls his hand out from under Gary’s to touch his shoulder.

“Now _you_ might’ve done that if you were managing Liverpool, I suppose,” he says, eyes sparkling, “anyone who spoke any English would’ve gotten into your team!”

“English? Then you wouldn’t qualify, would you?”

Jamie chuckles again, warmly, and Gary feels something, low in his stomach, like a knot that had been there since he’d seen the bruise, finally unraveling.

They make it to half-time, miraculously enough, and Jamie raises a hand to his eye almost as soon as the director calls cut.

Gary grabs his hand with reflexes he didn’t even know he still had. “Don’t. You’ll ruin it.”

“It’s itchy. And I need ice.” Gary pulls him by the arm back to the fridge, offering him a cold can of soda.

“Don’t get it too wet, or you’ll look odd, and be careful drying off afterwards,” he mutters, pulling him back to the studio so they could watch the match.

“Got a few tips off Tracey, did you?” Jamie asks, no heat in his voice, “I need a drink, Gaz.”

“What you need, you fucking idiot, is to keep your damn gloves up. Or quit hitting things that hit back! Go back to the fucking pads, James, you can’t pull this again, it’ll be a bloody miracle if we don’t get any headlines saying I punched your lights out.”

“There are bullshit headlines all the time. Remember that one from a few years ago saying Stevie and I had a fight? Daily Mail called it a ‘Scouse on Scouse Winner-Takes-All Brawl,’ whatever the fuck that means. He was quite upset, the papers said he’d lost, poor lad. Utter bullshit! As if I’d _ever_ hit him!”

“Well, I’m not exactly Steven Gerrard, am I.”

Jamie has a shit-eating grin on his face, and Gary knows instantly what he’s opened himself up for.

“Doesn’t matter, people know we’re friends now.”

“You’re not gonna…?“

“Too easy. Besides, I don’t have to. You went there yourself, spared me the trouble.”

Gary rolls his eyes and they watch Liverpool smash Middlesbrough. Jamie perks up as they go, even if the shiner is starting the show through as the condensation from the can smudges the makeup.

They’ve had three different goalscorers in the first half, and Jamie’s eyes are completely lit up, almost in that same feral joy as when he’s in the ring. His leg is bouncing, and Gary can tell he’s itching to be back out there, it’s written all over him. It’s been three years already. He half-wishes it could be easier for him. Only half, though. That itch? Gary recognizes it. It’s the itch that gets pundits out of the studio and back out on the training pitch, wearing a training kit and doing press conferences.

It’s the fourtieth minute when Julia arrives, dragging an indignant Jamie away to reapply.

“Call me! I want live commentary!” Jamie orders as he’s being taken away. Gary grins, and agrees.

He calls a few seconds later, waiting for Jamie to give him the go-ahead.

“Right, go on, you’re on speaker, Gaz. How are things looking?”

“Pretty much the same,” Gary says, exasperated fondness in his voice, “Moreno missed an absolute sitter, it was awful, even you could have finished a chance like that—Middlesbrough had a counterattack, but you could tell they were surprised to have even had the chance, their striker was way out on his own, Downing went completely missing—not that that’s much of a surprise, he always does at Anfield—“

Jamie laughs a little. “No injuries, no cards?”

“Coutinho tried to square up to someone twice his size, before Lucas came in and diffused the situation. The Middlesbrough lad tried to mess with him, but he walked away, no cards. How’s the makeup chair?”

“I’ve had kids who fidgeted less while getting their makeup done,” Julia mutters murderously.

“James, calm the fuck down, I’m giving you a literal second by second commentary, you aren’t going to miss a goal, mate, and if you do, you can watch it back before we do the half-time analysis, okay?”

“Gary Neville, you’re an angel sent straight from heaven,” Julia says, relieved. “Go on, then, you, you’re free to go. Don’t fucking touch it, or your hand comes off.”

“Thank you Jules,” Jamie says meekly. There’s the sound of a kiss—Gary knows it’s probably just a peck on the cheek, but his heart still squeezes in his chest. And then suddenly Jamie’s walking back into the studio, ducking to avoid a camera that almost blackens his good eye until he has a good view of the telly again.

“You’re going to get yourself killed doing that again. Just be a normal person for once, Carra.” Gary rolls his eyes and pulls him forward by the hand. “Come. Sit.”

“Not a dog, Gaz,” Jamie mutters halfheartedly, but he does walk over to him and sit in his chair, just in time to watch the whistle blow.

He’s patient, after the whistle goes, for them to do their bit of analysis and have a rest. He loosens his tie a little and relaxes a bit as they watch the next half.

 

  
The fallout of Bruisegate is… not as bad as it could be. Jules is a miracle worker, and while a few tweets come in wondering if Jamie’s ill, most of them are because he looks a bit green, because he’d had his face bashed in.

They laugh at the tweets and Gary sends out a response—“Wonky light! Nobody’s fault, it was just Carra’s bad luck that it was on him and not me!”

“Unlucky?! You probably paid him off!” Carra tweets back, both of them sat in the same room.

The internet loves it. Then again, the internet always loves their banter.

Jamie gets called in for a meeting with the higher ups after the filming ends and the director calls cut. He’s told that he’s free to box if he wants to, but television is a rather face-centric business, so if he could not mess his up, that would be preferable.

Redders knows the truth, of course, has heard both sides of it, Freddie to make a plea of innocence and Jamie just to laugh over the whole thing, makeup and all. The first thing he says to Gary a few days after it happens, for Super Saturday or whatever Sky’s billing the day’s football action as, is “I wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t told me. Is he alright?”

“The bruising’s healing up. He isn’t going to be fucking any strippers again anytime soon, though, unless they have a thing for damaged men.”

Redders rolls his eyes. “He was a _kid_ when he did that. It wasn’t ideal, yeah, but he was a kid. And he was a decent kid, too, kept himself to football and his mates, mostly. Didn’t come hang out with me, Macca, and Growler too much, though I can’t blame ‘im for that.” He looks nostalgic for a moment, remembering the kid who’d followed him around like a duckling follows its mother. ”He’s always been a good healer, though. He’ll be good as new in no time. Which is good, since I’m hearing he isn’t exactly mad about all the makeup.”

Gary laughs a little and they settle into their respective positions—Redders in the studio and Gary pitchside for commentary.

Gary sees Freddie in the gym a few days later, lifting weights. Freddie Flintoff is four inches taller than him and probably twenty pounds heavier than him. He’s at the lat pulldown, pulling a hundred and fifty pounds of weight. The muscles in his back are showing through the thin white t-shirt he’s wearing. Gary doesn’t flinch as he stares him down.

“We need his face on the show,” he says quietly, “so if you could not smash it, that would be great.” The words are polite, said with a smile, but there’s something about the glint of teeth that makes Freddie take the warning for what it is.

“It was just an accident, Gary. We were just sparring, and he’s—he’s quite good, normally. Wouldn’t make an amateur mistake like dropping his gloves unless he was preoccupied. We’re not going to spar on filming days anymore.”

“Good. And he shouldn’t be fighting when he’s distracted. I’ll have a word.”

“It’s not _fighting_ , it’s _spar_ —“

“Fuck’s sake, _I know!_ It’s like the pair of you are reading from the same script!” The outburst is too much, Gary can tell as soon as he’s said it. He feels young again, almost. Not in the good, strong way, but in the rash, reckless, half-ashamed way that had led to him screaming at officials and Scousers alike.

Freddie falls silent and raises an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” Gary mutters, blushing. “Just don’t break his face. Please.”

“Carra’s face is under your personal protection,” Freddie says dryly, “got it. I’ll keep that in mind. Does he know he has a United guard dog?”

“He knows our ratings are affected by what he looks like. Credibility goes out the window when you show up on camera with a bashed up face. Or get drunk and steal a pedalo.”

“I’m on a comedy show, mate, I don’t need to have credibility, just banter.”

Gary shrugs and walks away, off to the stationary bike where for once he watches the telly and not his co-host, mostly since Jamie isn’t in.

 

Gary doesn't know whose brilliant idea the fight is, and he's pretty sure if he did, he'd spend the minutes before he fell asleep each night dreaming up creative plans for vengeance.

He suspects Freddie, who's mates with both of them.

"Sorry, who the fuck said it was a good idea for you and Rio to try to punch each other's lights out?"

"Someone on production. They heard it from higher up. Nobody knows how high, though I'll bet you ten quid it's the Queen. I bet she gets off on two attractive, hot-blooded men all over each other."

So did Gary. That didn't mean he thought Jamie should be having a fight with Rio.

"Which one of you is fitter?"

Jamie flushes, but he’s honest. “Him. Definitely him. You should go on his Instagram, then you wouldn’t have to ask. Posts a lot of topless pictures of himself.”

“So why did you agree to this?!” Gary’s nearly apoplectic at this point.

Jamie shrugs. “I like a challenge,” he says casually.

Gary thinks he might have an aneurysm. He wants his tombstone to say that Jamie is singlehandedly responsible for his death.

"Why would two people who regularly go on telly voluntarily bash each other's faces in?! Am I the idiot here, for not understanding?"

"He's not gonna bash my face in. And I promised BT I wouldn't smash him too hard either."

"Are you at least going to be wearing helmets?"

"The network thinks they don't look good."

"Who the fuck is saying these ridiculous things?! Of course helmets don't look good! They're not supposed to look good! They're just supposed to keep your head safe, man, for fucks sake!"

"Real boxers don't wear them. All of Liverpool would take the piss."

"Does Stevie know about this? Have you told him about this idiot plan? Because I will if you don't."

"Sorry, Gaz, but you do know I'm not his pet, right? I'm his—I was his vice captain. Not his pet puppy, whatever it is the world seems to think. He doesn't just order me to heel and I heel."

"Have. You. Told. Him."

Jamie flushes. "I don't think he'd approve."

"And what does that matter? If you don't care what he says, I mean."

“He’s a mate, Gary. My relationship with him is none of your business, and your relationship with me is none of his business. So just leave it. I’m not kidding. Don’t bring Stevie into this, Neville.”  
  


 

 

Predictably, Gary brings Stevie into it.

Stevie’s in the studio the next day, so angry that nobody questions his lack of security pass. He looks at Gary, who simply points to Jamie’s dressing room, and then he’s gone, the door closed behind him and the sound of raised voices audible regardless.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Stevie’s saying, voice stern.

“I was thinking it was a pretty good idea,” Jamie says, almost playful.

Gary doesn’t know Stevie all that well, but even he knows that this is not the time to be playful.

They lower their voices, and Gary can’t hear the rest of the conversation. It’s half an hour before they both come out, Stevie looking exasperatedly fond.

The two of them hug and Stevie whispers something to him, squeezing him for another moment before he lets go, looking into Jamie’s eyes.

“You promised,” he says simply, and Jamie nods.

“Don’t make me set Mum on you.”

“Mine or yours?”

Stevie cracks a grin. “Both,” he says, watching the look of horror on Jamie’s face. “Kick his ass, mate, you’ll do brilliant.”

“I’ll get you a ticket, if you want? Front row?”

Stevie nods and pulls Jamie into another quick hug before he smiles at him and turns to leave. Jamie walks him out, and he’s back a few minutes later.

“Gary, I think we have some things to discuss,” he says tightly, walking over to him.

Well, _shit_.

Jamie is, to say the least, _profoundly unhappy_ with the way Gary’d gone behind his back to tell Stevie what was going on. It’s the angriest he’s seen Carra since their playing days, actually. It’s awful. The show that day is a little stiff, and Jamie doesn’t smile as much and hardly laughs at all, and when they’re done, he goes straight home, skipping their normal post-show drinks.

It takes a couple of weeks for him to cool down enough to talk to Gary again, and the message gets through—don’t try to use Stevie against him.

He doesn’t apologize, not in the truest sense of the word, but he doesn’t say another word about what a ridiculous idea this whole thing is, and he lets Jamie train and come in with bruises without commenting.   
  


 

The fight hangs in the air for weeks before it actually occurs. Julia mentions it as she does their makeup, the producers talk about it, some of the runners have bets on it. Everyone talks about it except for Gary, because he can’t seem to find the same levity that the rest of them can. He just feels a pit of dread in his stomach, because he’s looked at Rio’s Instagram page, and the man is so fit, he could play Adonis in a film.

It’s not like Jamie isn’t fit, he tells himself to combat his rising blood pressure, it’s just that Rio’s a year younger—and okay, Jamie isn’t _that_ fit, and Gary would be deluding himself if he thought he was.   
  


 

The weigh-in is a few days before the fight, and the press conferences that follows is full of classic Carra banter. Before the weigh-in, he sits in a sweat suit all day, covered head to toe as he does strenuous exercises and drops water weight alarmingly quickly. Gary worries for him, seeing him take off the suit and watching the water drip out—water that used to be inside Jamie. He would be disgusted if it was anyone else—that’s all _sweat_ , after all—but it’s Jamie, and he just worries about how dehydrated he is.

They arrive at the weigh-in and Jamie’s a whopping eleven pounds lighter than Rio is, which is terrifying, but apparently good. Jamie takes a cue from Sean O’Connell and hands Rio some flowers, and it’s a beautiful moment, watching Rio’s serious _I-could-kill-you_ expression give way to a heart-shattering smile. That’s what Carra can do, with his crooked little grin and the dimples that curve deep into his cheeks.

For half a second, Gary wishes that he was the one fighting Jamie and getting these flowers handed to him with that gorgeous smile aimed at him. Then he remembers that that would mean actually _fighting_ Jamie, and immediately takes it back.   
  


 

 

 

The night of the fight arrives. All the money goes to charities of Jamie and Rio’s choosing—Jamie’s decided to give his half to a prominent orphanage in Liverpool, and Rio’s giving his to a foundation that works with homeless youth in Manchester.

Sky and BT are competing broadcasters, so they both agree to allow the BBC to broadcast the fight, with each of them getting a cut of the profits. The Beeb agrees to run ads before the fight and running along the bottom scroll so people can donate money to the causes.

Gary’s going—all the Sky pundits are going, as are all the BT pundits. The networks want them to sit as a group, to support their colleague, but that structure breaks down immediately. Stevie and Mickey and Steve McManaman and Redders are all sitting together, talking quietly. Frank Lampard and Thierry Henry are being good neutrals, though Gary suspects that Thierry wants Jamie to win—he likes Carra. They get on well. Then again, Jamie gets on with everyone.

Freddie’s there—at least his chair is there. It’s labeled, a white paper declaring it reserved. But he isn’t there quite yet. Gary overhears Stevie saying something about how he’s back there with Jamie and Tony Bellew is giving him tips, too. Gary wonders if that’s enough, really. He sits next to Thierry and Lamps, in the neutral zone, though heaven knows he should be sat next to Scholesy and Giggsy in Rio’s corner. But he can’t sit in Jamie’s corner, and if he did, that would cause more headlines than it would be worth—not to mention how fucking _awkward_ that would be, sitting with all the Scousers. This is the best he can do, sitting in the neutral zone, desperately hoping that Jamie wins.

There’s a big crowd. There are banners, even. Banners about wanting a team of Carraghers, about how Rio’s the best center-back England has ever produced. The match is in Liverpool, and there’s that to be grateful for, at least—Jamie will have the home pitch advantage, and he’ll need every advantage he can get.

Freddie and Tony Bellew come out, grim-faced as they sit in their chairs. It’s more that they perch, the way their muscles are tense and their jaws clenched. It’s not a good sign, that they’re not optimistic. Tony looks like he has half a mind to jump into the ring himself, save Jamie the trouble of having to go.

The referee comes out first, followed by Rio, who looks incredible, much to Gary’s dismay. He’d been hoping that the pictures were more due to generous lighting, but clearly his former teammate is just in excellent shape, and that’s all there is to it. Jamie shows up a few paces behind, arms up to rev up the crowd.

He’s never seen Jamie like this—the shirtlessness, the silk shorts, the trainers, those are all the same, but the joy in his face is different. He’s charming the crowd with his smiles, stopping for pictures and letting a small boy pretend to punch him in the face. He’s smiling, but behind the smile, Gary sees the focus. It’s calculated, the charm offensive. Jamie knows the same things Gary knows, about Rio’s physical strengths, and he’s trying to hype up the crowd to maximize his advantages, too.

He’s in his corner, a trainer helping him with his water bottle and getting his gloves on for him. Rio’s in the opposite corner, doing the same thing.

Gary wishes he had a Xanax or two. His insides are twisting up in anxiety. Both of them get up and listen to the referee outline the rules. They’re looking at each other, even as they listen. Unfaltering eye contact.

The bell rings, and Gary wishes he could just breathe, but all the oxygen’s been sucked out of the room. It’s dark, spotlights on the ring.

They circle each other warily. Tony Bellew’s whispering something to Freddie, who mutters something back, neither of them taking their eyes off the ring.

Rio’s got two inches and eleven pounds on Jamie. Gary tries not to think about it, but those numbers are engraved in his mind forever. Two inches, eleven pounds.

Rio punches first, predictably. He’s the stronger one, he probably wants to take the offensive to get the fight over and done with. Jamie dodges and throws a jab to get more distance between them.

That fighter’s grace that Gary had noticed is back again, and they’re dancing around each other, dancing around the ring, and Gary settles down for a fraction of a second before Jamie throws a punch, a hard cross that catches Rio in the chest.

Freddie and Tony cheer.

Rio just grins, though it must be painful, and he catches Jamie in the side of the head a split second later, a hook that got past his guard.

Gary can hear Tony howling at Jamie. “GLOVES UP, JAMES.”

He glances at Stevie, who’s quiet and focused and very, very still. He’s tracking the fight with his eyes only, fingers digging into his thighs from the stress of it.

They exchange a few more blows, and eventually the bell rings. Rio takes the first round.

In the second round, Rio punches Jamie’s nose and it promptly breaks, blood rushing out of his nostrils. Gary thinks he might throw up. But Jamie just inhales hard and spits the blood to the side. He doesn’t even bother wiping his face. His mouth and chin are all covered in blood, and he keeps dancing around the ring. He punches Rio in the stomach, and Gary watches all the breath leave his former teammate’s lungs.

Jamie doesn’t let it rest, and follows up hard with another blow to the stomach and eventually Rio hits the ground, though he doesn’t stay there. The bell rings, and Jamie retreats to his corner.

Jamie takes the second round.

During the break, he rinses out his mouth and spits out more bloody water. The trainer wipes his nose and pinches it, trying to stop the bleeding. Jamie goes to lean back, but the trainer tips his head forward instead, letting the blood run out rather than down the back of his throat.

It’s not ideal, having him like this, and Gary wonders if his nose will heal up okay or have a bump in it.

The bleeding stops and the break ends. Both of them get up again. Jamie looks the worse for wear, unfortunately, and Rio barely even looks winded.

The third round is more cautious—they’re both trying to catch their breath a little bit, and Jamie’s focused on just dancing away from Rio, who’s trying to end the fight quickly.

He’s got that same feral joy, that same glint in his eye as he’d started with. They both do—Rio’s no different. Gary doesn’t think he’ll ever understand the bliss that comes with this particular sort of pain.

The fight’s meant to go on for six rounds, possibly going up to eight if they can’t decide a winner. At eight rounds, the judges decide by points. Gary hopes it’s over in six, even if it means that Jamie loses. At least he won’t be getting hit anymore.

Rio takes the third round pretty quickly. Jamie makes himself small and minimizes the surface area Rio has to aim at. He focuses on defending, on conserving his energy. He’s trying to outlast Rio, and Gary swallows, deeply unsure of this particular strategy.

The fourth round is more even. Jamie’s not holding back anymore, and he unleashes a flurry of blows that must be absolutely exhausting. Rio fends off the first few, but the next hook catches him square in the jaw and the uppercut that follows knocks the air out of his lungs all over again. Bruises are blooming over his abdomen and along the sides of his chest, and he looks vulnerable, for the first time.

Jamie takes the fourth. He’s panting, breathing through his mouth to avoid further damage to his nose. He’s got bruises all over, too, purple splotches that stand out starkly against his pale skin.

Gary looks over and Stevie has a peculiar look in his eye. His hands aren’t clenched into his thighs anymore. The tension in his muscles relaxes minutely. Something’s happened. Something in Jamie’s expression or body language makes Stevie feel like he’s got this.

Gary realizes what it is, then. His heart stops for a second.

Jamie’s going to try for the knockout in the next round or two. He’s got the energy reserves, and any attempt at defense is gone. Either he’s knocking Rio out or he’s going to get knocked out himself.

Gary hopes for the first one, because he doesn’t know how many more hits Jamie can take, and he knows that he’s going to try to get up until he physically can’t.

The break ends, and the roles are reversed, suddenly. Rio’s trying to drag the fight out. They trade blows. Jamie takes a deep breath and launches himself into another long and complex combination—he’s using everything he’s got. He pulls Rio closer for the hooks and uppercuts—Gary wonders at the intimacy of it, of holding another man’s body close as you strive to damage it—and pushes back with the jab to deliver a heavy cross. Rio looks dazed, and Jamie doesn’t stop.

Not until Rio’s on the floor. The ref starts the count, Rio tries to get up, and falls back down instantly. This time, he doesn’t get up. Doesn’t really even try. The crowd roars and the ref raises Jamie’s arm, and they’re giving him a belt, one with a football engraved in the center.

Jamie smiles crookedly, lips stubbornly shut to keep from tasting any more of his own blood. He has a cut on his cheek that the trainer had tried to close and had reopened at some point during that final round, when Rio had been striking blindly at him.

Redders, Tony, and Freddie are all on their feet, yelling and cheering. Stevie stands, but stays quiet, clapping as he looks at Jamie’s battered face.

Gary’s so exhausted he just wants to drag Jamie to a hospital and go to sleep.

Jamie hugs his trainer and then jumps out of the ring, squeezing Stevie in a tight hug and laughing when Redders, Freddie, and Tony all pile into it too. Mickey and Macca demand their turn next, and for the first time, Gary notices how pale Mickey looks, as if he’d just spent an hour feeling as utterly terrified as Gary did. Only it appeared that Mickey hadn’t even tried to hide it. He wonders if Jamie knows how loved he is, if he’s aware of the impact he has on the people around him.

There’s the purse presentation, and Jamie ceremoniously hands the check over to the head of the orphanage. Most of the kids are afraid of the bloodied man, but one of them thinks he’s the coolest thing to walk the earth and runs up fearlessly. Jamie catches him in his arms and lifts him up, setting him on his shoulder. They both cheer then, and the crowd cheers for the small boy as much as for the hometown hero.

Rio’s being looked after by the trainer, and he’s alright as he gets up, smiling as he shakes Jamie’s hand. Gary makes a point of clapping for him, not just for Jamie. He’s a good fighter, after all, and he deserves that much.

The crowd is still roaring as Jamie waves at them and heads into the tunnel, followed by the trainer and the physician and Rio. Tony waits about thirty seconds before he follows behind, with Freddie next to him. Stevie waits patiently for another minute before he decides to try to get back there as well. One signature for the security guard, and he’s through.

Gary wants to go back too, but he waits. After the crowd starts to disperse, the cameras are shut off, or shifted towards post fight interviews with the fighters themselves. Eventually they’re all allowed back there—everyone who works with either Jamie or Rio. Giggsy and Scholesy head into Rio’s dressing room, and Gary follows behind them because that’s what he’s expected to do.

He can hear the cheering from the other locker room—Jamie’s locker room, and it aches against the silence in Rio’s dressing room. Seeing his battered face only makes it worse. Giggsy sits down next to him, wraps an arm around him, and Rio leans into it, quiet.

Gary waits another moment and slips away, unable to resist going to see Jamie. He hesitates a moment before he pushes the door open, seeing Jamie sat down on a bench with the doctor opposite him, trying to tape up his cuts. He’s already gotten stitches on his cheek—he’s all wet and sticky with champagne as his friends chatter around him. Stevie’s got an arm around his shoulders, not caring about the sweat and champagne soaking into his expensive suit as he talks to Redders and Thierry, animated in a way Gary hasn’t often seen.

Once the doctor’s done with the treatments, Freddie breaks out another bottle of champagne and promptly sprays Jamie with it.

“Not his face!” Stevie orders, putting a hand up to shield it, “the last thing we need is him winning the fight and getting an infection from champagne in his cuts.”

“You worry too much,” Jamie says softly, pulling him into a hug that lasts for a long moment, and Stevie whispers something in Jamie’s ear and kisses his neck before they pull apart.

Freddie and Tony start cheering for him then, and pull him to sit across their shoulders, and it’s when he’s being lifted up by them that he sees Gary.

“Told you I’d win!” he crows, jumping down and pulling Gary into a careless hug.

“I told you you’d break your face, you idiot,” Gary mumbles, pulling away to look at him. One of his eyes is swollen shut and he traces the line of neat, even stitches along his cheekbone. “What are you going to do with your nose? Is it going to heal okay?”

That last question is aimed more at the doctor, but Jamie’s the one who answers. “It’s fine, Gaz. I’m fine! I won, I did it, just be happy for me for five minutes before you start worrying again. You and Stevie, you’re just the same—“

Gary glances at Stevie, who looks about as pleased as Gary is at the comparison, which is to say not very.

“So, who’s buying dinner, then?” Jamie asks lightly, looking around.

Stevie laughs. “You know I am. You know I promised you I would, if you won. Come on then, all of you, let’s go eat. What’ll you have, James? Steak? Burgers? Beer?”

“All of the above sounds amazing,” Jamie says with a grin so wide it would have opened up his cheek again if the stitches hadn’t held, “Gary, come with us.”

So Gary does.

Dinner is good, the awkwardness of being in the company of three Scousers ameliorated by Thierry and Redders, though the latter is nearly an honorary Scouser himself, the way Jamie and Stevie go over their fond recollections with him, reminiscing over beer and steak.   
  


 

 

Jamie’s excused from work for the next show. He helps with the preparations, talks Redders through some of the clips he wants on, but his face is bad enough that the producers can barely stand to look at him without grimacing, let alone the audience.

He stays for the filming, though, talking to Gary as he gets dressed before the show starts. He’s talking about the match, and Gary’s only half-paying attention when he goes off on a tangent.

“Maybe we can make it an annual thing,” he muses, “Premier League fight club sort of thing, all for charity.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Gary says sharply, looking up to see the cuts and bruises still healing, and knowing there are more, under the simple white t-shirt.

“What? You’re not my dad, Gaz, you can’t forbid me—“

“If you ever try this bullshit again, I absolutely will call Stevie again, and your mother, and your gran, and anybody who will listen and make them talk you out of it.”

“I didn’t know you cared that much, Gaz,” Jamie teases, and there’s a hint of flirtation about it that Gary completely misses in his rage.

Something in Gary just—snaps isn’t the right word. He feels like he’s been carrying this alone for so long and he doesn’t care anymore that Jamie doesn’t like him back, or that Jamie flirts with everyone all the time and Gary’s not actually special to him—he just wants things to be settled.

“I care. A lot,” he says quietly, standing up and looking at him. “More than I should, probably.”

Jamie’s silent, for once in his life, and he looks into Gary’s eyes. “How long?” he asks, voice low.

Gary glances at the door. “Awhile. It’s been awhile, Carra. Thought it would go away on its own, but it didn’t.”

Jamie doesn’t say anything for a moment, eyes closed as if he’s processing, and Gary’s sweating nervously, he can feel the dress shirt pressing against his skin where it’s damp.

“It doesn’t have to change anything,” he offers, a reprieve, a mercy so Jamie doesn’t suffer.

Jamie opens his eyes and looks at him again. “It’s going to change everything.” His voice is sure, as if he knows the future, and maybe he does, because that’s when he leans forward and brushes his lips against Gary’s.

It’s gentle, chaste, nothing like that impassioned makeout and sex against the wall that Gary had imagined when he touched himself at night, but it’s perfect anyway. Jamie’s lips are dry and soft, softer than he’d thought they’d be, and he can’t even feel how good the kiss is because he’s too busy being swept away by relief that Jamie feels the same—he can’t believe that he feels the same.

“Buy me dinner tonight,” Jamie mumbles as they step back from each other, suddenly remembering that they’re at work, of all places, “buy me dinner tonight, Gaz. And then we can practice, so the next one’s better.” He presses his lips to Gary’s again, less shy, less chaste. “See? I’m a quick learner.”

Gary chokes on his laughter, because of course Jamie would ask him out in the most Jamie way possible—and he laughs because he wouldn’t want Jamie any other way.

 

**Author's Note:**

> To all the people who have waited for this fic for decades, here it is! Also Alex, I'm pretty sure I might have promised this to you in like... December? But I hope you still like it now!


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